My surgery day had final arrived. As usual I had to be at the hospital around 4 or 5am with the actual surgery to begin around 8 or so. The prep for brain surgery takes a bit longer than a more standard procedure. This is mostly due to the fact that they have to shave parts of your head and attach probes to monitor brain activity. Of course this was something that was NOT mentioned prior. Therefore I had tears running down my cheeks as the nurse took a bic razor and shaved different parts of my head. I was determined to keep as much hair as possible! (Side note....this was the same time that Britney Spears had shaved her head, so I kept reminding the doctors and nurses to NOT go "Britney Spears" on me!)
After getting the IV all hooked up I waited for almost what seemed like 40 minutes before I was taken to the OR. I wasn't given any medication to make me more relaxed because there were additional probes and equipment they needed to hook up. Plus I had to be moved onto a special operating table. They notified me that they would inserting a catheter and a breathing tube. The breathing tube would be removed before I would be woken up in the middle of surgery so I could talk to the speech therapist.
*Note that most surgeries do insert a breathing tube, but because of the length of brain surgery (6+ hours) you can expect your throat to be sore and scratchy for the next day or two.
I do recall a few things when I was awoken in the middle of the procedure. The speech therapist kept calling my name and repeated her name to make sure I was aware of who she was. I was lying on my left side and she was pretty close to my face. I didn't notice anyone else in the room. Before she could say anything else I do recall mentioning that I was quite thirsty and would like a diet coke. I heard laughter from the others in the room. She proceeded to ask me the questions which we had gone over before. They also make you make faces and move your mouth and tongue. Again, this was a bit hard to do because your mouth is extremely dry. I'm not quite sure how long they kept me awake, but the overall surgery lasted about 6 1/2 hours.
Next thing I knew I was in the ICU (since they don't take you to the regular recovery area).
No comments:
Post a Comment